


The Crack

by surrealtrashman



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, I'm not shipping them you sick fucks, decided to churn it all out tonight, i love making Illumi cry, this is just a weird moment that's been stuck in my head awhile, uhhh that moment when you realize your relatives are people and not just your relatives?, vulnerability from the last person Killua would ever expect it from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 02:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrealtrashman/pseuds/surrealtrashman
Summary: Cracks in doors, hearts.A late night encounter unsettles Killua in ways that will take him years to fully process.





	The Crack

**Author's Note:**

> Just a thought that's been rattling around in my head for awhile now.

Creeping past Illumi’s room (and it was always creeping, never casually walking) had been a source of prickling anxiety for as long as Killua could remember, despite there never being any real danger in the act itself. Illumi had never jumped out to grab him, like a monster out of a nightmare. Perhaps it was the uncertainty of what lay behind the door: whether Illumi was in there or what he was doing, what existed beyond it, what exactly his brother did. It was much like the anxiety of seeing a spider, looking away, and then realizing the spider was gone. Was Illumi in his room? Was he elsewhere in the house? Killua didn’t know, and didn’t want to find out.

Milluki was different; Milluki was fun to antagonize. His impotent rage was easy to laugh at, and about as threatening as an overgrown child throwing a tantrum. But Illumi’s ire simmered coldly in a little smirk, and a flare of whatever the hell it was that emanated from him. Milluki wasn’t the one who administered the shocks.

Tonight, Killua couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it just happened, after years of being trained to keep his eyes open no matter the cost. Some nights, the anticipation of punishment ghosted like breath on the back of his neck. Tonight, the sensation was accompanied by _noises_.

They sounded muffled but still close, and incredibly pained. Moaning noises, choking, sobbing. Someone was crying? Crying pretty hardcore. Crying with a deep, wracking pain that lay heavy in the pit of one’s stomach like a stone. Crying the way Killua had when the skin of his back had been sliced open, the first time he’d been whipped, before scars had hardened him up.

Killua’s first thought was that someone being tortured, hurt, maybe that Illumi had kept someone alive and dragged them in to play with. He’d never done anything like that before, to Killua’s knowledge, but given his tendency to slice up pedestrians on impulse, it wouldn’t have surprised Killua.

But no, that wasn’t it. It sounded familiar, something in the quality of the voice. Killua slipped out of bed and moved silently to the door, heart racing. He strained to hear, ear pressed against the smooth wood. Well, it wasn’t his mother, the most likely suspect to be wailing. It wasn’t a woman’s voice.

Killua’s eyes widened in the dark, the tempo of his heart kicking up even more. Was that _Illumi_?

No way. That was impossible. The thought made Killua’s stomach churn, made his heart flutter like a prey animal, like a rabbit or something. Had someone gotten in? Was someone about to torture them all, one by one, and had simply gotten to Illumi before he’d gotten to Killua? It was painful to listen to, but not in a pitiful way. It was embarrassing, like watching someone be humiliated at a formal event or something. No, it was stronger than embarrassment; it was like disgust, nausea.

Killua was going to throw up right there.

Okay, he would have had difficulty explaining the complexity of what he felt, or why he felt it. But “fear” and “anxiety” would have been good starters.

Morbidly curious, and more than a little afraid, Killua opened the door as quietly as he could.

Unfortunately for him, the Zoldyck mansion was old as fuck, and damn near everything creaked. Especially the doors.

The crying cut off, replaced by gasping breaths, as though Illumi were trying to calm himself down. Killua froze, prey animal metaphor still in play. Another little sob, and a wet sniff, answered him through the crack in the door.

“Kil?”

That was it. Killua was going to die, at the tender age of eleven. Murdered by his own brother. There wouldn’t be an obituary. He’d be lucky if there were a funeral.

“Hey, Kil...”

Killua held his breath, listening to Illumi’s own unsteady breathing instead. He heard rustling, as though Illumi were getting up out of bed, and dashed back into his room as quickly and quietly as humanly possible, heart threatening to pound down his sternum like a door.

He heard his own creak open just as he pulled the covers up over his head.

“Killu, go to sleep.” Illumi’s voice cracked wearily; he sounded tired. Tired, and oddly gentle. Worn out from all that howling he’d been doing. Killua peeped one eye out of the covers, to find Illumi half slipped into the doorway, hair disheveled, looking even more dazed than usual. Killua couldn’t break his gaze away, and so they both stared for what felt like minutes, until Illumi blinked. “’Kay?”

“Mmm,” was all Killua could manage.

“Night.” Then, as he walked away, door still cracked, Killua heard Illumi mutter, “Fuck knows I can’t...”

Killua left the door cracked. He would have rather died than set his feet back on the floor before sunrise.

His brain struggled to parse what had happened, what he had seen and heard. It had to be a realistic dream, though it had been nothing like what he’d dreamed several months ago, with Illumi crying expressionlessly and giving him money. Expressionless would have been preferable to _that_ , to that awful _wailing_.

Illumi was supposed to be untouchable, merciless. Not waking him up in the middle of the night, crying like he’d been burned.

For years, Killua struggled with that, with why that night had unsettled him that badly. What the hell had he been crying about? He hadn’t been hurt, Killua would see that the next morning, and it unsettled him even more. The idea that something could harm Illumi that badly, could set him off in such an intense way...It felt like the ultimate threat. What could torment Killua’s tormentor so deeply?

Over a decade later, when Killua would receive a voicemail tinged with that same tired despair, he would understand. He would recognize the ache, would see a man haunted with regret as he courted middle age, shadowed by a relationship he’d broken. And Killua would feel that same wave of disgust, this time even more strongly, and would quietly block his brother’s number.


End file.
